Scandal in Cologne: Artist has to stop performing a piece by Steve Reich

Exceptionally I will point you to a text from two foreign sources. It has to with music and the lack of tolerance in Europe. And I rate it a first class scandal: The audience at the Philharmonie Köln (Germany) forced the British-Iranian artist Mahan Esfahani to cancel after four minutes his performance of a piece written in 1967 by Steve Reich: Piano Phase. Part of audience considered the piece too boring, to modern or both and started yelling, laughing and whistling. The fact that the pianist had introduced the piece in English compelled someone from the audience to shout: “Speak German!”

Considering the fact that right-wing slogans are gaining track in Europe, and in the light of repeated acts of violence against refugees from the Middle East, this is a noteworthy event and considerably more serious than anything Donald Trump is telling the world at the moment. It is an echo of the discrimination that artists faced a little less than 100 years ago during the rise of National-Socialism. Being outcast and silenced because one dares deviate from what the audience expects – I though that was part of the past. I hope it is not part of the future.

I recommend the piece in the German weekly “Die Zeit”, and thanks to fellow blogger Scribe Doll, we also have a link to a piece from the “Independent”. This time I do not say: Enjoy. My wish would rather be: Think!

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